The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 278 No 7437 p134
3 February 2007

This article
Reprint   Photocopy

PDF 110K, Acrobat Reader

• The Journal (7)
• Clinical trials
• Renal pharmacy
• Modified release morphine
• Pharmacy practice
• Locum pharmacy
• Pharmacy leadership
• The profession (2)
• Ethics
• The Society
• Retention fees (3)
• Retirement fellowship

Letters to the Editor

Retention fees

Retention fees should be payable at beginning of tax year

From Mr P. F. Jolliffe, MRPharmS

In order to keep up with the Joneses (PJ, 20 January, p75), I fully support their appeal to remove the retention fee deadline from the festive period, but for a different reason.

I have always favoured harmonising the payment of fees with the income tax year. The most appropriate time to pay fees for both membership of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society and professional liability insurance — as well as to retire — is the beginning of a new tax year.

Members registering or retiring outside this date should expect to pay pro-rata fees. Currently, a full year’s membership fee is payable by anyone who retires after 31 December. This is manifestly unfair.

Patrick Jolliffe
Chalfont St Peter, Buckinghamshire

Society must think again about fees for prescribers

From Mrs A. Rickard, MRPharmS

I write in support of the sentiments expressed in by Dave Thornton and David Ellerby (PJ, 13 January, p50).

It is incredible to me that a body which is dedicated to expanding the professional role of its members should penalise those who are in the vanguard of taking the profession forward. Prescribing should be an aspiration for the majority of our profession in the years to come. Therefore, any additional costs to the Royal Pharmaceutical Society should be borne by the whole profession. It is not the case that pharmacists who become prescribers have their additional qualification recognised by enhanced remuneration, certainly in the managed services.

I urge the Society to think again and to avoid giving our clinically trained pharmacists a disincentive to put themselves through the hard work required to gain this qualification and to take on the additional responsibilities involved. If not, then the Society is undermining not only the work we are doing in the managed services but also what it has itself proposed as part of the future of the profession — so much for the 2020 vision!

Anne Rickard
Chief Pharmacist
North Cheshire Hospitals NHS Trust

A case of misplaced envy?

From Mr P. Blake, MRPharmS

I am repeatedly surprised by those who, like David Kaye (PJ, 27 January, p108), imagine that it will be cheaper to be regulated by a government quango than by the present Royal Pharmaceutical Society. Such bodies are not known for their self-denial when it comes to potential income. Perhaps we should be looking askance at the lawyers’ £950 rather than enviously at the nurses’ £43.

Paul Blake
London

Send your letter to The Editor

Previous Topic (The Society)
Next Topic (Retirement fellowship)